Elbonian Defense

This Monday is an interrupt in my long weekend. Since tomorrow is a state holiday (Elbonians traditionally celebrate International Work(ers) Day by not working)*, vast numbers of my countrymen have decided to take a day off and just enjoy one really nice, relaxed and long weekend. Unfortunately for me, due to bureaucratic difficulties in moving various multicolored pieces of paper throughout the system on time, I actually have to work today. This is not too bad, though, since the rest of the firm's employees don't have to work, and so I have zero work to do.

I decided to catch up with the news.

First thing that I saw was that our own Minister of Love held a joint (meaning, Air Force, Navy and Army) military exercise for the benefit of an elementary school class (in Elbonia, class is about 40 kids). This is slightly strange, for two reasons: a) the exercise was held in Elbonian capital, which has no sea, and b) it was held *in* the capital itself, in military depot/garrison in one of the suburbs, instead of the more usual approach to hold it in the nearby swamp, err, field exercise complex. The apparent reason why the exercise was held at all, was because of our Minister's son, who had to bring his parent to school to tell about his work. Our beloved Minister decided not to give a speach to a class of 10 year olds, but instead opted to bring the school to his work. His son is now officially the coolest kid in his school.

According to the people in flats neighboring the base, the show was not too exciting - no military policemen fell out of the helicopters (like the last time a public exercise was staged).
How much did it cost? Well, far less then an U.S. day in Irak, and actually comparable with the cost of a day for our Elbonian troops in Jerka Jerkastan.

I say, money well spent.

All the other news were full of eulogies for our main opposition party leader, who died last night. Since in times past he was a leader of communist party, declared atheist (after meeting Pope John Paul, he decided he was "only" an agnostic), then leader of the social-democrat party, I found it rather strange that most of the articles focus on how he "accepted the faith", even though there is no evidence for it (he recently explicitly stated that he is not a believer). I mean, what the heck?! When did our Elbonian Catholic Church manage to hijack our newspapers?!
I suppose that many famous deathbed conversions originally started up as a story in religion-influenced newspapers..;)

Shaking my head, I surfed some more and I found out about recent interview of our Minister of Economics (the chubby guy-his team wore "Cho" T-shirts) who showed his complete ignorance of not only economics, but also the professional jargon. He managed to get an interview on TV after which everyone who knows anything about economics probably started to sell his government bonds and move their stock portfolios into other countries, like Hrbia and Crotoboltavia, who seem to have marginally more competent ministers (even though most of them had at some point of their past been unsuccessfull premiere league soccer club managers, crime kingpins, warlords, war crime suspects, state monopolists and local firefighting society presidents, kinda like our minister himself).

This was the moment I decided to just go away and watch some undead seafood instead.

* Traditionally, we all go out to a park and eat charity bean soup.

More Office Space

As you might have gathered, the organization of which I am a small and insignificant part, is not really known for its great management. For example, I work in an office of about 12 people, 3 computers, 4 desks and exactly 3 chairs. Whoever arrives earliest grabs the free chair, while the rest of the bunch then dejectedly wander around the office, pretending to work. This is, understandably, quite difficult, since most of their work requires computers. Some of the more adventurous go out for coffee, but that means confronting the infamous door problem, and because of the positioning of the coffee machines, braving the accidental encounters with the boss subclass*. This is to be avoided at all costs, since all the bosses have chairs, and thus suppose that everyone else has them too, and therefore that everyone else should be working and not drinking coffee. Needless to say, most of the bosses come from Crotoboltavia.

If you think that this situation is absurd, heh, you also need to know that my office has a small storage room at the back. This storage room is completely filled with expensive looking red leather chairs. Of course, we are not allowed to use them, since they arrived without anyone signing any papers, and therefore, they do not exist.

*Boss subclass is also recognized by their more expensive but less well tailored suits and mirror glasses with expensive writing on them.

Monday Shmonday

Life in my home country of Elbonia is strange and mystifying, especially when it relates to work habits of us, native Elbonians. If you listen to us speak, we spend enormous amounts of time working, usually for incompetent bosses imported from neighbouring country Crotoboltavia (world famous for its ancestral Elbonian wild mountain tribes and such fashion statements as white socks with suits and black shoes). If you actually visit Elbonia, you are going to find that all the coffeehouses seem to be full of the people, all the time, and that all of them claim to be on a short coffee break from their incompetent Crotoboltavian bosses. Of course, although incompetent, Crotoboltavians are crafty montagnards and quite often spend the whole day searching for their employees - usually by going from coffeehouse to coffeehouse themselves.

Some of us are lucky, and work for government companies, agencies, departments and the rest of the metastasizing kafkian apparatus of state. For us, the whole work question is quite irrelevant, especially when compared to really important issues like whether the weekly allotment of toilet paper arrived, who bought which of the daily newspapers (and of course, coordination issues for prevention of duplication of effort when buying or reading the same), whose turn is it to spend time and patience convincing the corner coffee machine to produce some liquid almost totally, but not quite, different then the coffee you asked for, etc, etc..

For example, I recently transferred into a new office, quite a bit higher up in the hierarchy of government. This office is part of a highly secretive and paranoid part of state apparatus, witch uses staggering security measures (quite alien to our easy-going Elbonian ways) such as security cards for opening doors, no coffee machines* in hallways and actual internal camera system. Because this is a secretive state apparatus, all the employees are required to wear suits (or for women, whatever haute mode is current) and black mirror glasses, which makes them highly inconspicuous in the middle of the military complex where the offices are situated. It also makes them highly inconspicuous on any public event which they, by the nature of their job, have to attend. To remind my foreign readers, in Elbonia men traditionally wear sweats, white socks and black leather jackets in public.

There also seems to exist a slight problem with the security cards for all the exterior and interior doors. These were part of a system inherited from previous inhabitants of that office building - a local HQ of an UN peacekeeping mission. This ancient technology (early 90s) in the meantime lost all of its accompanying manuals, most of the security cards themselves as well as the means to make new ones. So this secretive group of government officials is forced to wait around entrance and interior doors until the lucky card-bearer appears, all the time, of course, acting inconspicuously. Some enterprising individuals have in the mean time discovered alternative means of opening doors - it seems that card readers sometimes react positively to various pieces of colored paper, personal ID cards, and in at least one observed case, a briefcase.

You can imagine the scene: a small group of suits waits around entrance to an old building, pretending that they are just passing by or smoking a cigarette, while all the time watching actions of an unlucky individual who tries to open the door by waving various implements at it. When the door opens, everybody rushes in, while from the opposite side their mirror images try to rush out. Confusion ensues, confusion resolves, the doors close with ominous click, while one last unlucky late individual (running at breakneck speed) hits the door and slides down semiconscious, starting the whole cycle again.
Repeat the scene on every interior wing door.


* This problem was solved by putting all the coffee machines in the stairwell. Of course, that solution just compounded the problem with doors.